Sort of Similar
by Anzu Fan
Summary: Friendship tribute Rainy days are always depressing for Jonouchi. And when he thinks about it, he has to wonder if it's pretty depressing for Ryo, too. One-shot


Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh belongs to Kazuki Takahashi, who I am not. Therefore, I don't own YGO.

Well, no idea where this came from. Take that back, I know where it came from; I was messing around with my old YGO Falsebound Kingdom game – yes, I actually play it for fun – and it occurred to me just how upsetting Ryo's life is. Course, with Bakura around, life is difficult, but more problems than just that go on in his life. I figured I'd write a little something for the little guy. And thinking on it, I kind of see some similarities between Ryo and Jonouchi...hm...

Friendship tribute.

I see this happening right before the Millennium World Arc, if you really need to know. Anyway, little one-shot in honor of little Ryo…

000

**Sort of Similar**

Jonouchi hated rainy days.

It wasn't that he minded getting wet. That didn't bother him, and besides, Shizuka had made him promise to use an umbrella. It wasn't because things were chilly; he didn't mind the cold too much. It was kind of refreshing, really.

He wasn't sure why he didn't like rainy days. Maybe it was just because it was so gray, like the sky had decided to sit down and cry. But nevertheless, the rainy Tuesday found him looking up towards the sky, listening as the rain sped down the Earth, plinking and clinking and rattling, gushing through the sewers until it overflowed. He was under the overhang of the school, nose three inches from getting pelted with raindrops.

Jonouchi wondered vaguely if Yuugi might let him come over. His dad didn't scare him, but he didn't want to go home to cursing and that drunken face leering at him.

He still loved his old man, don't mistake it; but sometimes he wanted out. To go home to someone like Yuugi's grandpa, someone who was waiting on a cold day with some hot chocolate on the stove.

He remembered going home with Yuugi. Sugoroku had made extra hot chocolate, just for him.

Jonouchi shrugged against his jacket, holding his knapsack over one shoulder. The umbrella inside shifted.

Maybe he ought to just head home; the rain wasn't going to let up, and chances were that Yuugi was already gone.

He smiled. Hey, with all the megalomaniacs Yuugi had to put up with, Jonouchi was glad he had his Grandpa to go home to. Even his mom was around, sometimes…

Jonouchi let his thoughts about his own mother fade. He didn't like thinking about his mom.

Students trailed out, and he moved away from the doors, until he was just barely covered from the rain. Kids laughing, complaining about doing homework, it was all normal teenage stuff.

When the crowd died down, Jonouchi looked across the doors, to the other side of the overhang. He frowned a little.

Ryo's uniform was rumpled, and it was baggy on him. Like he didn't eat much, or he didn't get out in the sun enough. His long white hair was clean, but it was damp, and his bangs were sticking to his forehead. He was looking up, up at the gray sky, and his brown eyes were very focused, as though observing something very important only he could see.

Whenever he glanced at Ryo's eyes, it rather saddened Jonouchi. No matter how much he smiled, he always had this permanently somber look. No, maybe somber wasn't the right word…maybe just 'sad'. Somehow, he seemed just like Yuugi, but so very, very lonely, like all his joy had been trampled into the dirt.

Jonouchi watched Ryo a while longer. Something stopped him from calling out.

The young man seemed to quiver, before walking out, into the rain. He walked very slowly.

It occurred to Jonouchi that Ryo had no one to go home to, either. His father was never around, and he didn't talk about his mother. And his sister, Amane…

Jonouchi thought of Shizuka, and felt his heart throb painfully. Watching the cold, hunched boy walk further and further away, Jonouchi tugged out the umbrella, and opened it. Rain began pummeling it, sounding rather like a thousand miniature pillows. Jonouchi ran after Ryo, trying hard not to slip in the water.

"Hey! Hey, Ryo!"

The skinny, neglected little form stopped, at Ryo looked back, blinking. Ryo was surprised, so very easily.

"Oh…hello, Jonouchi-kun," he said softly, voice on the brink of a whisper. Jonouchi nodded, and held up the umbrella.

"You oughta get out of the rain, y'know?"

Ryo blinked – surprised again. "Rain doesn't bother me very much," he said, just as quietly as before. Still, Jonouchi held up the umbrella, and Ryo stepped beneath it, clenching his sodden books under one arm.

"How've you been lately?" Jonouchi asked, voice strangely full in the quiet of the rain.

"Well enough, I think." Gazing with what seemed to be doleful eyes at the clouds, Ryo added suddenly, "It looks very sad out, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. I think that's about the only reason I don't like rain." Jonouchi watched the water drip from Ryo's mane of white hair. Ryo wiped his bangs out of his eyes, cuffs of his wet uniform sticking to his wrists. Jonouchi could've counted the veins in his thin little arm.

"I like rain. Not the clouds, perhaps, but the rain itself. It makes everything feel clean, and new. Like everything's been washed clean." Ryo's other arm dropped to clench the books in front of him, rather weakly.

Jonouchi heard mutters from the students meandering out of the building. He glared back, at a group of them – just once – with his eyes blazing. Like a herd of gazelles, they hurried off, and the school's doors were silent again.

"Got any homework?" Jonouchi asked, shifting his knapsack on his shoulder.

Ryo shook his head. "Do you?"

"Yeah. But not much. I can't think about it or work on it; not with my old man at home." Jonouchi was staring at the clouds, aware that Ryo was looking at him.

"My father won't be at home. He never is, during the day. Sometimes I hear him come in at night. The only time I ever see him is in the morning. I still love my father dearly, though."

Jonouchi nodded. "Same here. He means a lot to me. Kinda obvious he does, isn't it? Why else would I work part-time to work off his debts?" He gave a short, barking laugh. And yet the thing wasn't amusing at all.

Ryo looked at him again. "How is your sister, Shizuka?"

The tight little bundle in Jonouchi's chest loosened a little at the thought of his sister. "She's doing really great. Did you know she likes looking through old kiddy picture books? She says it's so much easier to see them."

Ryo smiled gently - one of those smiles Jonouchi knew, the ones that never really reached those sad, pristine eyes. "And your mother?"

Jonouchi bit his lip. "…She's alright. She worries about me and dad, I think."

Ryo nodded, as though he understood Jonouchi's family problems – and for some reason, Jonouchi felt he actually might. "How's your family?" Jonouchi asked, his eyes lowering to look directly at Ryo.

With that benignly quiet face, Ryo blinked at him again, before saying, "Father is fine, and Mother never calls."

Jonouchi shifted his knapsack again. "You miss your sister Amane…don't you?"

Ryo twitched, and Jonouchi was afraid that perhaps he would cry, or worse, run off into the cold rain. But then, Ryo lifted his face, and murmured, "Very much, Jonouchi-kun. I miss them all terribly."

Jonouchi didn't want to mention the spirit in the Millennium Ring. He felt that it was listening, somehow, like it knew precisely what he was thinking.

A hot, hard anger needled its way into his heart. Ryo didn't deserve this. Not that family that seemed to ignore him, not the dead sister, not the crazy psychopath in the Millennium Ring, none of it. He deserved to have a good dead guy in the Ring, like Yuugi had in the Puzzle, and to have a sister still alive, like Jonouchi. He deserved to be able to walk home and have someone waiting for him, with open arms and hot chocolate on the stove.

A car slid by in the rain, like an otter into a current, black and sleek. Ryo was standing closer to the street, and water splashed up and hit him. He said nothing, nor did his face change in the slightest.

Jonouchi glared after the car. Then, he shook his head, thinking that it hadn't been on purpose.

Ryo was still very wet. "Hey, Ryo?"

"Hm?" he asked, looking up.

"Don't suppose you'd want to hang out today, would you?"

Ryo's eyes widened a little. "I…I would like that very much, Jonouchi. But…aren't you worried…about…"

Jonouchi thought of the blazing, golden ring, with the eye that seemed to burn itself into his eyelids. He scowled. "Nah. It don't scare me. Besides, you aren't wearing it, are you?"

Ryo shook his head. "I still think…it knows me…" he whispered, and Jonouchi's eyes narrowed slightly at the thought of that creature within.

When that thing had taken over, those eyes weren't Ryo's. They had been someone else's.

But right now, it was just Ryo.

"Well, we'll take our chances, won't we?" Jonouchi said, grinning fleetingly. "And besides, I don't have a Millennium Item or anything else it might want. Unless he wants an umbrella, it doesn't have anything to gain from going psycho on us, does it?"

Ryo stared at him, eyes large and questioning. Then…

He smiled. He really smiled, thin lips pulling back, eyes actually brightening, and he gave a small laugh. Jonouchi grinned back, and the gray clouds seemed to brighten just a little, like the sun's rays had strengthened just a bit.

"You could come over to my apartment, Jonouchi-kun. Father won't be home tonight, if you want to spend the night."

Jonouchi nodded thoughtfully. "Y'know, I just might do that. Hey, you like hot chocolate?"

Ryo nodded. "Very much."

Jonouchi grinned and put one arm around Ryo's shoulders, aware he looked quite goofy. Ryo seemed surprised, but he did not shy away. "Well, let me tell you; never drink hot chocolate when it's ninety degrees out."

Looking up at him in surprise again, Ryo asked, bewildered, "Why on Earth would I do that?"

"Well, I did. It goes like this; me and Honda had a bet that I couldn't drink a pint of hot chocolate when it was that hot out…"

"Why hot chocolate?"

Jonouchi shrugged. "Why not? We were bored, what can I say?"

Ryo nodded. "Anyway, I had to sit outside and drink it all, and if I did, Honda agreed that he'd go jump in the creek at the park in his underwear. Naturally, I wanted to see him act like an idiot, so-"

Continuing the story, the two kept walking down the sidewalk.

Anyone who looked back would not have seen a lanky, white-haired young man with sharp eyes watching them. But he was. He was standing, completely dry in the rain, and every rain drop went straight through him.

"_You have most peculiar friends, my young host,_" it said wryly, almost curiously, before fading, perhaps to drift back into his thoughts, or into Ryo's mind.

"_I suppose my plans can wait another evening, my little host._" The thing laughed, and Ryo glanced back, for just a moment, as though the laugh was echoing through the air, instead of just his mind.

"Something wrong?"

Ryo felt his shoulders shiver – just a little – before speaking. "Nothing, Jonouchi-kun."

"Nothing at all."

000

Truth is, I really don't know what happened to Ryo's mother. But then, we don't know much about any of the parents except for Jonouchi's. Other than Yuugi's mother, anyway. And if his dad's job involves traveling a lot, then I guess he only stops at home every ten years or something, because he's never there… read and review, if you please…


End file.
